Those of us in the opinion class have been complaining that Trump voters are post-truth, that they don't have a respect for expertise. Well, the experts created a school system that doesn't produce skilled graduates. The experts designed Obamacare exchanges that are failing. Maybe those of us in the professional class need to win back some credibility the old-fashioned way, with effective reform.

There will be plenty of time to be disgusted with Trump's bigotry, narcissism and incompetence. It's tempting to get so caught up in his outrage du jour that you never have to do any self-examination. But let's be honest: It wouldn't kill us Trump critics to take a break from our never-ending umbrage to engage in a little listening.

On a day the incoming administration was reaching out to Democrats, members of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus demonstrated an extraordinary -- even for them -- obtuseness.

The right-wing ideologues have started barking out orders and drawing lines in the sand: Obamacare in its entirety must go! The Senate filibuster must go! No infrastructure plan that isn't paid for! Silly geese. They imagine that the threat of exposing GOP leaders' insufficient conservative purity will make House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) quake in their boots. Apparently, the Freedom Caucus zealots missed the election of a non-conservative populist president with few, if any, objectives other than maintaining public adoration. Freedom Caucus fellows, you guys are about to be run over by a combination of "establishment" Republicans and Democrats who jettisoned the "small government" fixation months ago. read more

(CNN) -- Citizens of other nations often find US politics to be, well, very strange.

"how could Americans even consider choosing a blustering billionaire over an experienced former senator and secretary of state?"

The answer is fourfold: anger, economics, cronyism, and identity politics...

Next up, there's Clinton Inc. Whether it's the email saga, or Clinton's pay-to-play tenure at the State Department (seats on commissions appear to have been given in return for donations to the Clinton Foundation), or her big-buck speeches on Wall Street, Hillary Clinton does not have a reputation for honesty.

In many ways Clinton is a made-for Trump caricature of Washington DC cronyism. This record -- and Clinton's persistent refusal to show regret for it -- has helped Trump shape an unusual narrative for the electorate: You not might like his gauche rhetoric, but at least he owns it. Clinton, however, is simply a liar.

President Barack Obama's approval rating stands at 55% in a new CNN/ORC poll, the highest mark of his second term, and matching his best at any time since his first year in office. The new rating outpaces his previous second-term high -- reached just after a Democratic convention that extolled the successes of his presidency -- by one point, and hits a level he's reached just twice since the end of his first year in office: In January 2013 just before his second inauguration and in January 2011. The new poll continues a streak in which Obama's approval rating has been at 50% or higher in CNN/ORC polls since February, a seven month run that is his longest since 2009. And taken together, Obama's approval ratings in 2016 average 51% so far in CNN/ORC polls, his best mark since that first year in office.

A nonpartisan watchdog group Thursday called for a federal investigation of Hillary Clinton's campaign committee, accusing it of illegally accepting millions of dollars worth of "opposition research" and other assistance from Correct the Record, an outside super-PAC, in violation of U.S. election laws.

The Campaign Legal Center also filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission to initiate probes of Donald Trump's campaign, and two super-PACs backing it, for similar violations of laws barring "coordination" between political campaigns and outside groups.

But the Campaign Legal Center's detailed 52-page complaint against Hillary for America and Correct the Record -- part of the sprawling political empire run by Clinton backer David Brock -- is likely to get special attention, given Clinton's repeated advocacy of campaign finance reform.